chickenfeet

Just back from a longish bike ride. It was a bit of an experiment as I didn't want to go out and back the same way and I wanted a route with more hills than, say, going out to Port Credit. I went north up Sherbourne and continued generallynorth through Rosedale, over the Summerhill pedestrian bridge to Moore Avenue and the south side of Mount Pleasant Cemetery. From there WNW to the Beltway trail and along that to its terminus just over the Allen Expressway north of Eglinton. Very pleasant so far. Not so pleaant for the next few mile continuing the general line WNW along Castlefield and Trethewey to Weston Road. The section along Trethewey is particularly unpleasant with very fast, inconsiderate, traffic. From Weston Road I dropped down to the Humber Valley trail just south of Lawrence and so south to the Lake. This section is mostly lovely. From the mouth of the Humber to home via the Martin Goodman trail and Queen's Quay. Pleasant enough despite the usual small hassles along Queen's Quay W. There was a crowd watching police operations at Dunn and Lakeshore. I don't know what has happened but there were numerous police cars, an ambulance and a SWAT team there and the Gardner was closed in both directions.

It's warming up. Definitely time to think about taking the hydration pack rather than just a water bottle on a ride of this length.

Today was the first day of Nomads' pre season training under the dome at UCC. The turnout was mixed. The U18s (including many of my squad from last year) and the U16s were out in force. The girls were there in numbers too but where were the senior men? There may have been more junior coaches than senior players there. I joined in most of the drills that didn't involve contact or lifting so I probably got around a 90 minute work out. I got through it better than I expected but I suspect I will be very sore tomorrow.

In other news, Miss Grey Kitten appears to be in serious training for the World Snuggling Championships. She hardly leaves me alone for more than a few minutes at a time. Serious nose bonking is involved.

I'm starting to think about next rugby season. I am going to be refereeing. That means job one is to be match fit by the start of May. I'm thinking that if I keep running four to five times/week, do a bit of skiing and maybe do some 'staircase' workouts, maybe twice per week, I should be in good shape to start getting in shape around the middle of March. I'll need to ensure that my weight stays below 215, preferably 210#. I'll also do indoor training with the Nomads once that starts.

Some time in March I'll hit the serious training schedule. As well as regular running. I'll work in fartleks and sprint drills. I want to get my 2.4km time below 11 minutes by the time fitness testing comes around. I'd also like to be inside 6s for 40m. (Yeah, I know, neither of these is very fast but I'm no spring chicken).

Philosophically, I think I'm going to be a less lenient referee. Reflecting on the games I reffed last year, watching higher level games and talking to other refs I have come to the conclusion that not much in the tackle zone happens by accident. Players on the wrong side of the ball can get out of there 95% plus of the time if they want to. Players can stay on there feet unless contact is involved. I think I'm going to go with close to zero tolerance in the tackle area.

I'm not sure what will happen with the coaching. I guess I'll do it if I can though I'm not sure it will be at all easy to fit in with work. Wed'll see I guess.

3.2km in 15m05s this morning (4m43s/km). That's a pretty big improvement. The not so great news is that I appear to have the Yeomen 2nds again on Saturday. It's a measure of how far my mood has improved since Sunday that I feel relatively unbothered by it.

Now that my aerobic fitness and endurance is getting back to something better than awful aerobic fitness i decided it was time to start work again on lactic endurance. So this morning's work out:

Jog to baseball diamond (2 minutes)

Dynamic stretching (2 minutes)

Sprint recovery - 20 secs flat out sprint, 1 minute walk, 1 minute jog - x5

Walk 1 minute, Jog 1 minute, Walk 1 minute, Jog 1 minute, Walk 1 minute

Sprint recovery - 20 secs flat out sprint, 1 minute walk, 1 minute jog - x5

Jog home

Static stretching (2 minutes)

It didn't feel too bad though I've definitely got some muscle burn happening (especially quads).

I had Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy on the iPod which seems particularly apt given the state of my ankle.

A month ago the Nomads started inside training under the dome at St. Michael's College School. I missed the first three sessions; two due to illness and one due to opera, so I made the effort today. The damn thing had been double booked and we got bumped by a marching band, of all the unlikely things. We had the place for about half an hour so i got a warm up and some touch in but that was about it. I guess I'll have to wait until next week to see just how bad a shape I'm in.

There were lots of the juniors there which bodes well for later in the year.

Partly because of the recurrent ankle problem and partly because of some interesting material about interval training that krustukles posted yesterday I decided to go back to a staircase routine for a bit. So, today 45 floors (mostly at a run) with each set punctuated with one of my shoulder exercises and twenty crunches. After the last set of stairs I did ten push ups too. That's the bit I'm most pleased about. Ten, full, fully controlled push ups for the first time since the shoulder separation. That's the real proof that I have the muscular strength back.

X-posted to vgym_buddies

Weight now below 215 pounds for the first time in a year. That's roughly 20 pounds off since Thailand.